(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Nicolas Cage is known for nothing, if not his idiosyncratic style of acting–seemingly coterminous with his actual personality–which can blend into any role in any genre for reasons that don’t really make sense. He’s acted in films from every category of cinema you might care to name.
Cage has seemingly done everything. He started out in teen sex comedies like 1982’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High and transitioned to more serious dramatic roles, including 1995’s Oscar-studded Leaving Las Vegas and the widely acclaimed Coen brothers flick Rasing Arizona… which is a funny movie, but like most Coen pictures, you’re unsure if counts as a comedy or not. He was almost Superman in a botched adaptation and cameoed in the role in 2024’s The Flash, for which your friends may have apologised to you if you saw it. No one will ever forget the ‘bees’ scene in 2006’s remake of the folk horror classic The Wicker Man.
The library of his career, both in his accomplishments and duds, goes on and on. The National Treasure films and The Croods series ran for years, proving he possesses the attributes necessary to carry a serial franchise. But what about action movies? He’s been in more than a few.
From 2018’s cult hit Mandy (box office failure, but who cares?) going backwards, Cage has adapted his anomalous acting to quite a few films in the action genre. But which one is his favourite? He told the world about it on a Reddit AMA.
Cage responded: “Thank you. Face/Off is my favourite action movie, largely because we had the maestro John Woo to direct. The process was a matter of getting video of Travolta ’s dailies and trying to study it so I could copy his voice and movements. John Travolta conversely did the same with my dailies.”
Being the weird guy that he is, of course, he was on Reddit. He seemed to fit in there. And while celebrity AMAs have become more and more common, Nic was open and honest about his life and career in a way that we’re not used to from the typical Hollywood diva. He talked about bees and the ocean and laughed at a fan’s joke about Face/Off.
The film in question (which might get a sequel) has him playing two characters at once due to facial reconstruction surgery on John Travolta’s character. This is not the last time Cage would play two characters at once, as he would play twins in 2002’s Adaptation.
You wouldn’t exactly call Nicolas Cage a versatile actor. He never exactly disappears into a role. It’s always Nicolas Cage. But he’s won gold in Hollywood, and apparently, he has Reddit gold now, too.
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